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Tag: Christ
Praying for Children-UPDATE
Today a recommendation:
Here is a distinctively Evangelical slant at praying the Scriptures for our children by Thom Turner, using an Eastern Orthodox lens. It is an interesting place to begin exploring this topic, and enact practices like these for our offspring, (or the children in our lives). In this way, we learn how Christians have prayed blessings for children over the centuries, and God is honored by our petitions and praises.
UPDATE new post from Thom:
| A Prayer for Our Children: Song One
Posted: 31 Mar 2011 12:09 PM PDT This is the first prayer of “A Prayer for Our Children.” This prayer should be read slowly and meditatively, pausing on each phrase and line break. A brief silence should be held between the call and response. Call Almighty God, you nurture all Christians. Raise my children (insert name of child) to be worthy of your kingdom. Response Just as the Archangel Gabriel was sent to Mary and Joseph to protect Christ from harm, I pray especially for God to intercede in our lives. Be my help, so that I: Raise my children to be earthly angels. Amen |
So, You wanna ditch your church? Top 5 Mistakes
Sometimes going to church doesn’t seem worth it. For heaven’s sake, wouldn’t it be better to just have breakfast with some family or friends, and forego irritating people, scheduling problems, overblown or petty dramas de jour, personality conflicts, politics, dodgy doctrinal positioning, and the rest of machine the local church can be? Is the Cracker Barrel growing a bit more more alluring each Sunday morning?
Seems like a no brainer, right?
If this is kind of thing is happening for you, in your local church, maybe church shopping is around the bend? Well, wait just a minute. Here are 5 Mistakes you can make (or have made) regarding your local church.
1. Making theological judgements for what are personal preferences.
2. Mistaking the “local church” for The Bride of Christ.
3. Misunderstanding the idea of “community.”
4. Implementing a consumer approach with the spiritual and transcendent.
5. Overlooking what is happening in the sacraments.
Being from a more independent faith tradition, I grew up with the sense that church, in the local setting, was mainly about worship and fellowship. Well, it is, but not in the small sense I understood it to be. Now a bigger view of Church guides my life, and my relationship with my God and Savior.
Simply put: Church is hardly about “the local church” or about any human individual.
Jesus saved humankind through his Bride the Church. That means our preferences have very little to do with what God is doing, and the workings of Church.
The Church is something universal, invisible AND visible, international, and local. It is bound by culture and history, and yet handily transcends them both. It may exist in a location temporarily, but exists eternally in every location. Yes, it’s bigger, in every way than you think, or have the ability to imagine.
We apprend it in such tiny ways at times…
Perhaps, we get caught up or annoyed by such things a personalities, worship styles, programs, or issues related to our doctrinal formulations, opinion, or personal preference.
We may go “church shopping” and miss the point completely.
How correct to say, “Church is not about me.”
It’s about WE.
In the sacraments, the community of God (Trinity) intertwines with the community of man (humanity). We receive divine grace. God is with us. God is with his Bride, the Church. Locally the church celebrates what the collection of Christians, past, present, and future is enacting, together.
Each Sunday, worldwide, Christ’s Bride gathers, and meets together. The church is with “him”, as it has done from the beginning.
Even as the earth spins, the variances in time zones cause prayer without ceasing, and the fellowship and communion of the saints occur, globally.
And with Christ, Father, and Spirit, we celebrate the reality of koinwnia (koinonia) with the Divine. Thomas Aquinas wrote, “the Eucharist is the sacrament of the unity of the Church, which results from the fact that many are one in Christ.”[7] (Eucharist means thanksgiving.) Koinwnia is what Christ exercised divinely with humanity, by grace, through his work in his ministry, on the cross, and in his resurrection. It is how we commune with each other, and worship God in Spirit and Truth.
Through a local church body, we live out, and enact the Gospel and participate the actual in-breaking of the Kingdom of God here on earth. The local church is people, and people are flawed. What God has done, is doing, and will continue to do, is not.
This whole concept is all summed up nicely in the Apostles Creed, in which followers of Christ unite in spirit and truth. Many of us may not know the creeds, or declare them together with other Christians. But, this particular creed, well-established in the 300s A.D. (C.E.), and is the/a manifesto (see ref. link) of the Bride. It is a speak-act and agreement of followers of the divine Father, Son, and Spirit, for a way of living and being; and understanding the world.
To take this creed fully to heart will expand your idea of church, unify you with Christians of the last 2,000+ years, and may even help you forebear with the frailties of local church you attend, here and now.
From the Book of Common Prayer –
I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth:
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
Born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead, and buried:
He descended into hell;
The third day he rose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost;
The holy Catholick Church;
The Communion of Saints;
The Forgiveness of sins;
The Resurrection of the body,
And the Life everlasting.
Amen.
Your comments are welcome.
Don’t hug a Pufferfish
What a HUGE temptation to be self-satisfied as we acquire knowledge.
We soon secure a kind of confidence (or inflation) when we know things others don’t. Too little does our increased knowledge humble us as we recognize all the many things we do not know.
Our opinion of ourselves may intensify and improve, despite not using our gain for the benefit of others. It’s a strange irony. And I’ll bet it’s far easier to see this in others than in ourselves. What do you think?
It reminds me of the fish you see here. The porcupine fish (often confused for the pufferfish) have the ability to inflate their body by ingesting water or air, and swelling up. At 2 times their size vertically, they try to avoid death by scaring off smaller-mouthed predators. Their pointy spines, distend outwards when the fish is inflated, and some species are poisonous. A tetrodotoxin resdies in their internal organs, such as the ovaries and liver. This neurotoxin is at least 1200 times more potent than cyanide (from wikipedia).
One downside to furthering education is the routine bypass of true humility once some comprehension has been achieved. Knowledge ends there, perhaps. We like it because it helps us somehow comfort ourselves. It gets ingrown and fetid. Too often it is used to showoff, or deflect others when we are threatened, or to feel superior inwardly. Too often it is not united to wisdom, which should be our true goal. In wisdom, knowledge and maturity converge to bless others. Wisdom helps our knowledge to give back, and reproduce goodness in kind.
Knowledge without mindful experience won’t produce wisdom. A wise one is continually teachable, and can learn from any other person. A solely knowledgeable person compares themselves to others, and feels confident or insecure depending on who they are stacked against.
It’s not that education, knowledge, and learning is negative, on its own. It is the way we use our new understanding and expertise that is the issue of greatest import.
Paraphrase of I Corinthians 13:2b. “…If I can comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge, and even possess mountain-moving faith, but disregard love, I am of no good use.”
I have to keep a close watch that my knowledge does not trap me into a foolish corner where wisdom cannot be found. I have to be mindful that I bless and not oppress others through gained knowledge. My God grant me his grace and nature to do it.
Who in your life has impressed you with his or her humility coupled with knowledge?
For me, I find Jesus a great example here. Also some of my learned professors have had incredible humility coupled with awing intelligence and academic achievement. It is a beautiful display of the Fruit of the Spirit.
How do you struggle with this, at times?
What helps you keep in-check?
New Lenten Devotional- thumbs up!
When my friend and former classmate, Karen Weiss, sent me this information today, I knew I had to share it.
Lent is coming. This year the season of Lent begins soon, on March 9 and continues for 46 days until Easter Day. As Karen says, it offers us “an excellent time to clear away the clutter and delve into our faith. This devotional is designed to stretch and encourage you to look at life in a unique way through the eyes of saints that have walked before us. With the assistance of twelve different devotional classics, we can discover God in a new, relational way and grow stronger in our faith.”
I highly encourage you to take time this season to regularly reflect on the themes of Lent, especially in conjunction with a friend, family member, or small group. Make lenten reflection part of your spiritual journey this year. Explore this guidebook, or another devotional guide, that will take you deeper in your walk of faith. And please, keep me updated!
Karen’s devotional is only $7.50!
Yes, I know what you’re thinking, “AWESOME Valentine’s Day gift!” (Or you JUST thought that, in the last 2 seconds.)
BUT-JUST WAIT! As a special treat, this “Freebie February”, the first 25 people who respond in the comment section, will get a promo code for an additional $2 off. WHAT? Only $5.50? Moly Hoses! Yes, folks, that’s how I roll. Happy February, ya’ll!